


my kingdom for a kiss upon your shoulder

by lesbianchrispine (Sher_locked_up)



Category: Star Trek RPF
Genre: M/M, Post-Star Trek Beyond, john cho is awesome, men being babies about feelings, theme parties are the worst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-30
Updated: 2017-05-30
Packaged: 2018-11-06 16:44:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11040177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sher_locked_up/pseuds/lesbianchrispine
Summary: i wrote this after i read a lot of pinto, and listened to alotof jeff buckley.





	my kingdom for a kiss upon your shoulder

What almost kills him, Zach thinks later, the next day and weeks after that and really every time they’re picking out a bottle of wine for any reason, is that it might never have happened, if it weren’t for stupid John Cho’s stupid theme party for stupid Halloween. Which is, as one approaches forty years of age, an entirely fair way to feel about a theme party for Halloween. Regardless of whether or not the rest of it’s true.

They’re at Silverlake Wine and Zach’s perusing a selection of Argentinian malbecs, ostensibly to find something for this godforsaken shitshow of a party he’s agreed to attend, but Chris is over by the locked display knocking back something that looks like it ought to be sipped and grinning cheekily at the twelve-pack-and-a-tan who’s just served it to him, so Zach’s probably also doing a fair amount of personal shopping as he pulls three brightly-labeled bottles of the varietal and heads toward the front counter.

Chris lobs some of his sweet little grin Zach’s way and Zach rolls his eyes. “It’s not even noon, Christopher.”

“So? This is _artisanal mezcal_. You can drink artisanal mezcal any time of day. Scott said so,” Chris gestures at the set of veneers with a spray-tan, “on account of the _body_.”

Zach snorts and plunks down his bottles. “Charming. I got the wine.”

“ _Wine_ ,” Chris wrinkles his nose, and it’s actually truly offensive that, genuine or not, at thirty-six years of age, that’s still somehow allowed to be endearing. “Wine is so boring. Who even brings wine to parties anymore?”

“Adults do, actually. Adults bring wine to parties.”

“ _Boring_ adults.”

“Totally,” Spray-Tan interjects, baring uber-white fake-teeth at Chris. “Wine is _so_ , you know. It’s like… you know…. It’s like cupcakes.”

Chris’s eyes twinkle. “It’s like _cupcakes_ , Zach.”

Zach bites the inside of his cheek. “Cupcakes.”

“You know,” the guy gestures vaguely. “Cupcakes, they had a moment? Really hot, for a while. But they’re like, you know. Over?”

At this point Zach can see from the pinched way Chris’s lips are pressed together he’s gonna lose his shit in T minus. He hands over his Amex and and looks pointedly at his selections. “Be that as it may.”

 

*

 

They’re back in Chris’s car—Zach’s driving, pretty much always drives these days, didn’t know how much he’d _miss_ driving, living in New York—before Chris really lets loose with it, just clutches his own sides and hollers out laughter. There aren’t many people Zach knows who can truly do justice to a hearty guffaw, but Christopher Whitelaw Pine is one of them.

“Oh, god,” he gasps, “it hurts.”

“Good,” Zach says, but there’s no heat in it. “Poor kid. Probably just wanted to impress his childhood crush and now he’s gonna get fired for saying that dumb shit in front of his boss or something.”

Chris looks momentarily mollified, then outraged. “ _Childhood_ crush—?!!”

“Hate to break it to you, man, but Trek came out almost ten years ago. That kid in there’s barely twice that.” Zach turns smoothly through the gate and into the drive in front of Chris’s house (Compound? Mansion? Weird half-desert-looking-thing with a _rosewood desk_ Chris _designed himself_? Pretentious as fuck, is what it is, but for whatever it’s worth, it still feels like home). He kills the engine and turns to Chris, puts a hand on Chris’s shoulder. “Buddy, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but: we’re old.”

“Speak for yourself, Grandpa,” Chris does some weird little move that involves leaping out of his side of the fifty-year-old convertible whatever-it-is he’s most recently restored without so much as unlocking the passenger’s side door, and lands neatly on his feet. “I happen to be in the prime of my life.”

“Mm, I can see that.” Zach lets his eyes run appreciatively up Chris’s body, notes with mixed relief and disappointment that Chris isn’t flying commando, and waits for Chris to look just this side of smug before he adds, “Must be hell on your wardrobe.”

Chris reaches back behind him and from the look on his face, finds the gaping hole that was once the seat of his pants. “Damn.” He shrugs. “These were falling apart anyway.”

“Sure, Pine,” Zach says, and pulls his shopping tote out from the floor of the back seat, “whatever helps you sleep at night.”

 

*

 

The theme of the stupid Halloween party is “Famous Couples” and this presents every kind of problem for Zach, seeing as he’s technically arriving with Chris which means he might as well be going with Chris, which means they probably need to like, pick a set of costumes together, or whatever. It’s not that he minds being coupled up with Chris, not like he used to back when they fooled around sometimes because it was fun, but Public Chris wasn’t allowed to like boys like Zach, and eventually it wasn’t so much fun anymore. It’s more that they’ve been Kirk and Spock for going on a decade and that’s kind of the world’s most famous of the Famous Couples and what kind of costume are they supposed to pull together that’s gonna outdo that?

Chris, of course, has had about a billion terrible ideas over the past month and a half, so Zach’s veto card is pretty well punched out by now. The party’s in a few hours and they’re circling around Chris’s original argument again.

“The point is we don’t _have_ to outdo ourselves because we can just _be_ ourselves!” Chris keeps saying it like this, as if Zach doesn’t understand the inherent genius in the two of them going as Kirk and Spock, except reversed.

Zach shrugs. “I just don’t think you have any real Vulcan in you.”

Chris’s eyes gleam wickedly, “Actually—”

“You know what? Forget I said that.” Zach taps his lower lip with his fingertips and hums. “You could borrow some of my clothes and go as Alternate Universe Chris, who, like, knows you’re supposed to wear socks with closed-toe shoes, and has a decent haircut.”

“Hey!” Zach watches as Chris runs a hand through his hair a little self-consciously and you know what, it _is_ cut nicely. Just the way Zach likes it, actually. Short on the sides and in the back, a little long on top so it falls into his eyes and needs constantly to be pushed back; his face looks great these days too, his stubble just tipping over into beard territory. “Nobody wears socks in California. It’s like, a by-law.”

Zach shakes his head. “Whatever you say, man.”

Chris _does_ look good, Zach can admit that. He looks like he did that spring of the Into Darkness press tour, a time Zach doesn’t let himself think about too much not because he regrets a single second of it, but more because some memories aren’t recorded on acid-proof photo print paper and he’s afraid too much handling will make them fade. He keeps those tucked away for when he really needs them, is all. But it can’t hurt to think about how _good_ Chris looked then, how _good_ he looks now. Not at this point.

“You might be onto something with the alternate universe thing though… like, we could go as Evil Spock and Kirk! I mean, you’d need a goatee but I’m pretty sure for you that’s manageable in a few hours—”

Zach swats at him ineffectually and passes a hand over his jaw. It’s been two days since he shaved and he’s let his hair grow out long on top again, lank and floppy. He kept it even after all the horrible things Miles said about it—that he was trying too hard to be young, to look young. That he couldn’t just change his hair and become thirty again.

When Chris had picked him up from the airport a few weeks back he’d beamed at Zach and rubbed at Zach’s scruff with his fingertips and told him he looked great, six hour flight and three-week-long breakup notwithstanding. So he’d kept it like that, because why the fuck not? What did Miles know? Nothing, that’s what. He didn’t know anything at all.

 

*

 

In the end they go with Chris’s first idea, because it gets late and Chris pleads and Zach’s never been all that great at saying no to Chris, even when he really, really should. So suddenly these fake ears materialize out of nowhere and onto Chris’s head and now Zach’s wearing bright yellow spandex, _really_ not his color, but at least he doesn’t have the dumb hair and the dumb eyebrows.

They get anywhere from a polite laugh to a knee-slap-and-chuckle so it can’t be that bad of an idea. He sees Romeo and Juliet, Bogie and Bacall, Bert and Ernie. Tom is over by the bar pouring Jerry a bourbon punch and Tweety Bird is, rather ironically, perched on Sylvester’s lap, chatting with a ketchup bottle. Zach looks around a bit more and finds the mustard over by the patio digging through the cooler for beer.

They find John and Kerri, who are dressed as Luke and Leia, already chatting with Zoe and Marco, who are wearing what look like giant white bedsheets. Upon closer inspection Zach notes Ray-Bans perched on their heads, and a paddle tucked into a rope-belt wrapped around each of their middles.

“See!” Chris points, yells by way of making their presence known to the group. “I _told_ you Luke and Leia would already be taken. And by the hosts! _That_ would have been a faux pas.” He frowns, makes that face that he damn well knows is charming as hell because it’s all blue-eyed, pink-pouted confusion as he stage whispers, “you guys like...you _know_ about Luke and Leia, don’t you? Like, you’ve actually seen _Return of the Jedi_ , right?”

John pats Chris on the head and gives him a piece of candy.

“Are you… is that _Animal House_?” Zach asks, plucking at the fabric bunched on Zoe’s shoulder. “That’s not a couple. That’s just a costume. From a movie.”

Zoe shrugs. “I have two year olds. Two of them? Maybe you’ve heard.”

Marco slings his arm around her shoulders. “It is functional,” he explains. “Truth is, we have actually been sleepwalking through the last six months of our lives. This saves time. When we get home we can just collapse into bed _et viola_! Sheets.”

Chris laughs and slaps Marco on the back, and then they all greet each other with kisses and bro-hugs and all their weird little rituals that have become like home over the past decade.

After the prerequisite ten minutes of full-group check-in chatter, they break off into factions to get into the particulars. John and Zach move to the kitchen to open one of the bottles Zach brought, and Zach leans against the counter while they let the wine breathe.

“You don’t think we’ve aged out of this demographic, a bit?” Zach can’t help asking as Buzz Lightyear wanders by, presumably in search of Woody.

“Fuck you, man,” John says easily, retrieving glasses from inside a cabinet, “some of us are _finally_ aging back _in_. You know what’s great about Halloween when your kids get a little older? They all want to hang out at _their_ friends’ houses, too.”

Zach laughs and concedes the point as John pours him a generous glass. He cups it in his palm, swirls the wine around, shrugs and says, “Someone has to be the cynic.”

John knocks his glass against Zach’s and sips. “This is nice stuff man, thank you.”

“It’s nothing. Actually, it’s _hysterical_ , you should have seen what Chris did at the shop earlier, he—”

“About that,” John interjects, and Zach stops not so much because he’s interrupted but more because he can’t figure out why he thought anyone else would find the story all that funny in the first place. Definitely falls firmly under the category of _had to be there_. Weird.

John keeps talking though, and Zach tunes back in right around the time he says, “...I just. I think it’s really awesome, you know? That you guys are actually doing this.”

Zach blinks. _What did I miss?_ He looks down at himself and shrugs. “Uh, thanks, I guess? I mean, it was Chris’s idea. I thought it was kinda dumb but people seem to like it.”

“No, not _that_. That’s actually really cheesy and I would be making _so much fun of you_ right now if it weren’t for…” he gestures down at himself meaningfully. “I told her we should be _Han_ and Leia, but _no_ , she wanted me to be a _jedi_ —”

“John.”

“Anyway,” he says, “I just mean that you’re doing this. _This_.” Zach must still look more blank than his dance card lately because John looks at him like he’s some kind of idiot before adding, “You know, the dating thing. In public. Where people can see you and shit. It’s nice that you guys are finally just living your lives, you know? Not worrying about what people think. What Paramount thinks. I mean, what the fuck can they do about it, right? _Beyond_ was the most successful Trek film of—”

“John,” Zach interrupts, “what are you _talking_ about?”

“You and Chris! Come on, Zach. Don’t act like we didn’t all know about it before even when you _were_ trying to hide it. I mean it’s not like you ever could’ve hidden it from us anyway on those press tours. That shit was like sleepaway camp.”

“No, I didn’t—”

“And now you guys have clearly figured something out. I don’t know, man, maybe I’m overstepping or something... sorry, if that’s what it is. I just wanted you to know, you know? That we all love you. That we’re happy for you, because you’re sure as shit happier together.” John shrugs. “That’s all.”

Zach has pretty much figured out what John’s trying to say at this point but that doesn’t mean it makes any more sense to him. “John… Chris and I aren’t, like… _together_ , or anything. We’re not _dating_.”

“Uh huh.”

“No… seriously. I’m just staying with him for now while I get my bearings out here again. His place is huge anyway, and Wednesday likes the company. And we always worked out together when I lived here. And since we’re both single, and both invited to a _hideously immature_ couples-themed party, not to mention we’ve both been playing Captain Kirk and Spock for fucking, I dunno, the better part of a _decade_ , we figured why not just, you know, come together. Here. To the party.” Zach can’t really think of anything else to add. Why does it all seem so lame now, hearing it out loud, when it all made perfect sense not three minutes ago?

John just looks at him. Doesn’t even raise a goddamned eyebrow, the bastard.

“Oh,” Zach says.

 

*

 

It’s not like he’s ever done anything just because John fucking Cho thought it was a good idea, Zach’s thinking as he glowers into the rearview mirror on the drive home. Chris is driving because John kept pouring and somehow Zach ended up with the lion’s share of two bottles of wine swirling around in his belly, which really just goes to show that anything John fucking Cho says is probably actually a terrible idea. He’ll be forty any minute now; enduring the beginnings of a wicked hangover while still sporting red wine mouth is just unfuckingbecoming.

And like, so what if John Cho said it like everybody else was in on it? Like the whole group of them had secret meetings tracking the progress of Chris and Zach’s zany bicoastal adventures, hoping for the day they’d get their shit together—

 _And what_? Zach thinks. That’s the entire point. And _nothing_ , is what it is. They’ve already been through just about every iteration of close and intense friendship two dudes who happen to have amazing sexual chemistry can possibly go through and they came out the other side relatively unscathed; there’s no need to tempt fate, here. It’s not like they never tried fucking around. It’s not like they weren’t basically dating at one point, for a little while at least, until they both sort of silently agreed it was a piss poor idea to try and live completely opposite lives together, secretly. Just because they didn’t have some extended, emotionally draining, all-night come-to-Jesus conversation wherein they identified every fucking feeling they ever had for each other so they could feel free to let go and move on doesn’t mean they _didn’t_ let go and move on. Right?

It’s none of John Cho’s business, anyway, what they’re doing. It works for them, right now, for Zach to crash at Chris’s until he’s sure about what’s gonna happen next, for the dogs to play together and for Chris and Zach to take up their former habits like the old running route and their favorite taco place and shopping together at Whole Foods because why make two trips, buy two of everything?

(“So like, let me get this straight,” John had said, pouring Zach another full glass like an asshole, “you’re dating him… and you’re not even getting _laid_? Bro.”

Zach had sneered at him, but he’d also taken a pretty big mouthful of wine around it.)

Chris pulls into the drive and kills the engine. “You all right, man?”

Zach snorts. “Fantastic.”

“Right. I mean, I totally believe you and everything, it’s just you’ve sorta had your brooding, I’m-about-to-kill-someone-with-my-eyebrows face on since we left, and not that I don’t completely trust you at home while I’m sleeping, but, uh—”

“Don’t you think it’s weird we’ve just started calling it that?” Zach interrupts, and Chris pulls up short with a baffled look in his face. They haven’t even undone their seatbelts.

“The serial killer face? Have I done that one before?”

“No, Captain Oblivious, _home_. We call it ‘home.’ Not your house, not _the_ house. When we’re on the last leg of a morning run we’re almost _home_ , when we’re leaving a party, it’s always ‘who’s gonna drive _home_?’. It’s weird, man. Isn’t it?” Zach fiddles with the edge of his bright yellow sleeve.

“Zach… I donno what to say, man. I didn’t know it was weird for you. It’s not weird for me. This _is_ your home. However long you want it to be, y’know? _Mi casa es tu casa_ , _si_?”

“It isn’t _weird_ for me.”

“O-okay. Because you just said—”

“It’s _weird_ for everybody else, apparently, but not _me_ ,” Zach continues, basically muttering under his breath at this point because that’s definitely the best way to appear less crazy and not at all wine-drunk as he hashes this all into pieces between them in the dark, cool night air that’s settled inside the car. “Or at least, it’s weird for John fucking Cho, as if he’s the authority on what’s weird for everybody we’ve ever met.”

“Yikes,” Chris lets out a long, low whistle between his teeth and undoes his own seatbelt, then Zach’s. “I’m not really sure what’s going on in there,” he taps the side of Zach’s head, and Zach swats at him irritably, “but if you wanna talk about it, I’ll be inside. The dogs need out and I think I might need a beer.”

Zach gives it a good three and a half minutes before he follows, because fuck, he has some kind of pride left, anyway. He’ll come inside when he’s good and ready. That just happens to be now.

“Chris, are we dating?”

To his credit, Chris’s movements barely register a pause as he shuts the sliding glass door behind the dogs and moves over to the fridge. He pulls out a bottle of beer and opens it with his hands so firmly it makes that satisfying _ksshhh_ sound that Zach can never manage to coax out. He takes a long pull and sets it down before turning to face Zach, palms flat on the beautiful marble island countertop. “Do you want to be?”

“The fuck?” Zach sprawls out on the nearest chair and opens his hands across his lap.

“You tell me, Zach. I have no idea what you want me to say. Where is this coming from?”

Zach closes his eyes. “I don’t know.”

“Did John say something? Was there some weird gossip rag shit going around?”

“Yeah. No. I mean, it doesn’t matter. I don’t—I don’t know why I care, anyway. At this point.” Zach keeps his eyes closed and leans his elbows on the kitchen table, presses his face to his palms and groans. “This shit is like. _So_ eight years ago.” He means to laugh but it comes out as kind of a bark-sob, and what the fuck, are those tears? He sniffs hard.

“Zach…” He hears Chris move closer, can feel the warmth in the room shift as Chris takes the seat nearest his at the table and sets his beer between them. “I’m not sure what you’re asking me. I know you’re not obtuse enough to not know the answer to that. Or, I donno, maybe you are? Maybe you are, and I just always gave you too much credit.”

Chris laughs hollowly, and Zach looks up at him, not bothering to hide his splotchy red face or his wet eyes. Chris just shakes his head.

“Look, Zach. Whatever happened before, whatever didn’t work out… it doesn’t matter, y’know? It never mattered. I mean it did, of course it did, at the time, but now? Like, who cares, you know? I don’t care what anyone thinks or says, even our friends, and I gotta say you’re gonna have to explain all that to me a little better so I know whether or not to be pissed at John over this, but—”

“No, don’t be pissed at him,” Zach sighs. “Be pissed at _me_.”

“I don’t want to be pissed at you,” Chris replies reasonably, and Zach hates him just a little bit in that moment, for being reasonable and generous and beautiful and not freaking the _fuck_ out like Zach thought he would, because what the fuck, _Zach’s_ freaking the fuck out, and he’d appreciate some company. “I just think you should know—thought you _did_ know—that whatever this is,” he gestures at the empty space between them, as if that clears anything up, “it’s all good. We can be whatever you want us to be. I fucked it up last time and I don’t really get to make the rules here, this time. I just know I wanna be the guy who picks you up from the airport and the guy you stay with because nowhere else in the world feels like home and the guy who goes to stupid costume parties with you because, fuck you, I’m _hilarious_ , and—”

That’s when Zach kisses him. Hard, and sloppy, and a little off-center and toothy, but the first _real_ kiss in so long he almost forgot how _good_ Chris tastes, how soft and pliable his mouth is, how he can feel Chris smile against him even as surprised as he must be right now, being kissed by Zach, after so many years. After so many promises Zach made never to kiss him again.

Zach pulls away and sobs wetly and _fuck_ if he’s crying _again_. “I’m sorry.”

Chris shakes his head. “It’s fine, Zach. It’s good.” He kisses Zach’s forehead, smoothes his floppy hair back. “I mean, I really hope it’s what you wanted, and not some dumb wine-drunk Zach way of thanking me or apologizing to me or whatever, because that would be _really_ fucked up—”

“How could you even—god, do you even listen to yourself?” Zach pushes himself up and away from the table and starts to back away. “Why would you even say something shitty like that?”

Chris shrugs. “We kind of suck at this stuff… I just don’t know with you, sometimes.”

Zach glares and crosses his arms. “ _We_?”

Chris stands and glares right back. “Yeah, _we_. Just because you handled things your way and I handled things my way doesn’t mean you knew what to do about it any more than I did. I may have been hiding for a long time, for _too_ long, I’ll give you that, but you weren’t doing anything about it but using that as an excuse to be shitty to me.”

“It fucking _hurt_!” Zach explodes, and he can’t help it that’s he’s yelling now, because it doesn’t have anything to do with the wine or John fucking Cho or anything that’s happening between them lately, “you  _broke_ my _heart_!”

Chris’s mouth drops open and Zach paws angrily at the tears streaming freely down his face and his chest is heaving in a way he can’t quite get handle on. “You broke my heart,” he repeats lamely, and tries again to breathe around the weight of it. “So now you know.”

He’s looking down so it takes him by surprise when he risks a glance up and Chris is right there, right in his space, cupping Zach’s jaw between his huge square hands and kissing his mouth over and over again, softly, reverently, kissing his mouth and his cheeks and his eyelids, murmuring into Zach’s skin and then, all at once, folding Zach into his arms and holding him close.

“I didn’t know,” Chris says. “I thought—I thought you didn’t really want this. You didn’t want me. I thought it would be better, if I just—I didn’t know. I let you go. I wanted to be a good friend.”

Zach shrugs, even as he tucks his wet face into Chris’s neck to breathe in the woodsy scent of him. “I wanted you to. To think that. I wanted to—it was easier to just leave.” He pulls back and looks Chris in the face. “We were idiots.”

“Yeah,” Chris says, takes Zach’s hands in his hands, “yeah, we were.”

 

*

 

It’s funny how it can be so many years since you fucked someone and still feel like you never stopped fucking them? Like maybe every person you fucked between the last time you fucked that person and now was just a way for you to remember what it’s like to fuck them, because Zach’s body feels good all over, feels perfect, feels like sex should feel, like sex always feels, even now while he’s just lying next to Chris, fucking him open with two slick fingers and slowly rutting the wet head of his dick against Chris’s hip. Chris’s dick is hard and red and huge like he remembers, lying flat and leaking all over his smooth belly, and Zach’s mouth waters as he watches Chris’s abdomen flex against it as he fucks himself down onto Zach’s fingers.

“Fuck, Zach,” Chris gasps, and squirms a little against the sheets, “more.”

“Always such a slut for me, Pine,” Zach says fondly, and Chris opens his mouth to reply but Zach shoves a third finger in and leans down to push his tongue into Chris’s mouth and whatever Chris was about to say turns into a muffled moan so delicious Zach helps himself to seconds.

“ _Please_ ,” Chris pants against his mouth, and Zach curls his fingers and rubs up inside him and Chris mewls and whines and Zach looks down to watch the precome ooze from the slit of Chris’s twitching dick.

“Fuck, baby, you’re close, aren’t you?” Zach groans, “Here, let me just—”

He pulls out his fingers and slicks his cock, maneuvers Chris’s thighs around his hips and leans down to mouth at Chris’s swollen red lips as he pushes in and slides home.

“God—” he grits out, “Chris, _baby_ —”

“Zach.” Chris’s voice breaks and that’s all Zach can take, he growls and Chris gasps as Zach fucks into him over and over, holds him close enough that Chris can rub himself off between their bellies as they lose themselves to the tight wet heat, the pressure, their mouths smearing words between them as their bodies clench and shudder, shatter and fall…

 

*

 

If Zach wakes up on the edge of panic, he can forgive himself. He’s been an ass, and lord knows he doesn’t deserve it so he’s entitled to some full-bodied relief that Chris is still here, in his bed, curled on his side and drooling onto Zach’s pillow, because of course he is.

Zach spoons up behind him and he can’t stop himself from gathering Chris close again, even though he knows it’s kind of a dick move to wake Chris up, but Chris just cracks an eye open and smiles sleepily, wriggles back into Zach’s body and lets him.

The next time Zach wakes up it’s because who the hell could sleep through Chris’s high-pitched giggles shaking the whole goddamned bed? He opens his eyes and yelps, because Chris is using Zach’s phone to record a video.

Chris moves just in time to avoid Zach’s grabby-hands. “What the fuck, Christopher?”

“I keep telling you, you snore, but you won’t believe me.” Chris holds up the phone and grins. “Ergo: proof.”

“Who the fuck says _ergo_ before eight in the morning,” Zach grumbles, but it’s a front, because soon he’s got Chris tackled onto the bed and now _he’s_ got the camera trained on Chris, but Chris never does what Zach expects him to do and instead lies back and licks his lips and makes sex-eyes at Zach, like he’s been waiting all day for this.

Zach’s heart squeezes painfully at how beautiful Chris is like this, golden and naked and warm in Zach’s bed and absolutely the most perfect thing Zach’s ever seen, even with a crusty line of dried drool running from the corner of his lips down his jaw.

It occurs to him that this is just how Chris looks now; that he _can_ look, that he’s allowed to and Chris isn’t going to fade into nothing because Zach touches him too much. That this is the way the man he loves looks, this man who loves him and whose home is also Zach’s home. That this is theirs, now, and Zach isn’t all alone in trying to protect it for himself. From himself. He takes a photo of Chris sprawled out with the sheets tangled around his middle and the wildest bedhead he’s ever seen. He takes a photo of just Chris’s shoulder, the tips of his fingers, the way the heel of his foot nudges against Zach’s thigh. He takes a picture of Chris’s beautiful, beatific face, his eye-crinkles and his salt-and-pepper beard that’s soft enough now to feel like heaven between Zach’s legs. He throws aside his phone, over the edge of the bed, doesn’t matter, doesn’t need it. Chris is right there, after all. He takes Chris, takes him into his arms and kisses him and tucks himself into all the places Chris is warm and soft and open for him. He breathes.


End file.
